Gone are the days when people turned up late to parties. Now everyone wants to go home as soon as possible. By Candida Crewe
My mother was once stopped for soliciting as she sat in her car outside a house in Kensington, all dressed up, waiting to go to a party. She explained to the policeman she was congenitally punctual. Arriving on the dot or even early was an occupational hazard. Luckily, being of the same persuasion, he let her go.
That was in the sixties, but the notion of arriving anywhere on time persisted in being as uncool in the eighties when I was a young woman about town.
Then, if you were asked to drinks, the time was 6.30pm and no one who wasn’t a total dweeb would be seen dead arriving before 7 at the earliest.
Same with dinners when invitations stated ‘8 for 8.30’. Who ever arrived before nine, or cared that the hostess’s soufflé had transitioned to a pancake? It was insufferably bourgeois to think of such considerations. Looking cavalier was all that mattered.
In 1957, C Northcote Parkinson devised the Cocktail Formula, as part of his Parkinson’s Law:
‘The people who matter will not want to make an entrance before there are sufficient people there to observe their arrival. But neither will they want to arrive after other important people have gone on (as they always do) to another party. The optimum arrival time will be exactly three-quarters of an hour after the time given on the invitation card: 7.15 if the party is supposed to start at 6.30.’
During the Christmas party season, I went to a brace of book launches, a private view, a 60th drinks party and a dinner or two.
Old habits die hard and I did not turn up à point at any of them. But I am by nature as punctual as my mother – and I’m now 60, so can’t be bothered to try to be cool any more. These days, I arrive ten minutes after the starting pistol instead of my erstwhile 45 minutes (minimum), or couple of hours (in extremis). When I pitch up closer to kick-off, I have arrived to a heaving crowd every time. Sometimes I’ve been only five minutes ‘late’ and the heaving is already in full swing. The majority have not arrived not only at the new cool hour but, heaven forbid, actually early.
This used to be completely unthinkable. We all knew that logically some poor sod had to be the first to arrive, but we were all on a tacit mission that it should never be us – social suicide.
It implied so many unacceptable and bad things: nothing else to do; no work; no friends; a fatal enthusiasm. Why enthusiasm was verboten for booze, food, friends on tap and bonhomie was never quite clear. We just knew instinctively it was a major error.
Until suddenly it wasn’t. When did 6.15 become the new 7.30? 7 the new 9?
Either the cool lot has popped its clogs in one fell swoop and we are left with only the uncool, or we can no longer be arsed with the inherent tedium and risks involved in being cool – such as arriving when everyone has left and in time only to help with the clearing-up.
My friend Catherine Mould, married to art dealer Philip Mould, says they regularly have events in his Pall Mall gallery. They always used to begin at 6.30pm, but now invitations are for 6pm.
She says, ‘Since lockdown, a lot of people feel conflicted. They want to see their friends and to be seen, but they also want to stay at home. ‘They’ve lost the appetite to go out with gusto. So the earlier things start and they can go home again, the better.’
Many have quit drinking and social events become excruciating. Gatherings are a chore to be endured just to let people know you’re still alive.
Lots of people stop work at five. What to do with that dead time before the witching cocktail hour of six? So ... they turn up on the dot.
I was at a recent book launch at Daunt at 6.10 – the new sweet spot. There were over 100 people already quaffing away and clutching copies of the book. Should I have shown up at 5.30pm and done some browsing before the fun began?
I had a lovely time. But I was there for only an hour – how surprising to find myself one of the last to leave.
The last stragglers to leave an early evening event used to go at 10.30pm – then went off to supper in Chinatown, on to the Groucho or the Chelsea Arts Club, winding up in bed at dawn.
I go running and don’t drink but no longer have the stamina for chain-partying.
I welcome the now-popular 7.30pm invitation to dinner – practically high tea, for
God’s sake. At 10.15pm, it’s straight home. Bliss. Reassuringly, my son, Erskine, 26, still thinks being on time is ‘not vibes’.
‘The best thing is to be the last to arrive and the first to leave,’ he says cheerily.
I remember how crucial it was to give the impression of being in demand. How being questioned for being a sex worker was better than being keen and on time. Those were the nights.
